Best Productivity Apps For 2017

Productivity – we need it almost daily and yet it is so hard to achieve. Procrastination, the natural enemy of productive people, is everywhere. And strong. We at Ambient-Mixer.com have thus decided to dedicate the month of February to productivity! We will provide you with tips, trick and other helpful ideas that will, hopefully, improve your productivity.

To start off, we will have a look at the top productivity apps out there.

The Best Apps To Get Stuff Done In 2017

When we say apps, many will immediately think about their phones. And, yes, of course we will present you iOS and Android productivity apps. However, we will also include web apps, simply because many of us, nowadays, have to work at a computer. And where could these productivity apps help us better than at work or when working for school? Exactly!

So, lets dive right into our list of the best web browser, Android phone, iPhone and iPad productivity apps.

The Notes App – Evernote

Evernote is one of the best note taking apps out there.

The notes can be formatted easily and images and other files can be attached to them as well as links. Furthermore, they can be assigned to different “notebooks” for different projects and provided with tags that can give a quick overview of, e.g., the categories or urgency of your notes. You can even set a reminder for your notes that notify you either on your phone, via e-mail or on your desktop. Notes as well as whole notebooks that are especially important can also be added to a separate shortcut menu, similar to a favorite list.

For group project or work purposes, it’s also very practical that you can share your notes and notebooks with other people. That way, a whole team can access the same notebook to distribute tasks, gather information in one place, and more!

The different versions of Evernote provide additional features. In the mobile app, you can set up a work chat with people you share a notebook with. For web usage, you can also install a plugin that adds interesting blog articles and websites to your notebooks, either in a full content, simplified or screenshot version.

Needless to say that you can, of course, sync the different Evernote versions. No matter if you are using it on the go from your phone, in your browser or at home on your desktop computer – your notes are always there.

The To-Do-List App – Any.Do

Some people, like me, simply work better and more effectively with a to do list at hand. In order to have it with you and accessible at any time, there are of course various applications that transfer the list making from a physical notebook to your phone and computer.

Any.do is one of these apps, and one that provides you with everything you need. It allows you to create easily manageable to-do lists by using tasks. These tasks can be single tasks or recurring ones, containing work tasks or a list for grocery shopping – whatever you can think of. These tasks can be assigned to different projects and contain notes in text form, attachments like images and videos, or even a voice note. You can even “star” them to mark tasks with a higher priority.

Any.do can also be used for work and school projects since tasks can be shared with other people. The tasks and lists can be accessed and edited by group members and information and progress can be seen by all.

The Time Tracking App – Timeflow

Timeflow is a powerful, calendar based time tracking app. With the use of a calendar and different “projects”, you can start tracking time you spend or want to spend on different tasks. The projects, in turn, have to be assigned to different clients, e.g. co-workers or project partners. You can, of course, leave a task without a project or client as well.

Once you created your task in your computer, all you have to do is open your task and click on the play button and your time starts running. This is very helpful for a number of people, e.g. freelancers to track the time they spend working on their tasks, or students that want to track how long they took for studying or reading texts.

When using the mobile app, you can easily sync it with the browser app that provides even more features. If you use Timeflow for professional and work-related things, you have the possibility to create invoices based on tasks you marked as billable. You can set the hourly rate, bill for a whole project or single tasks, or create an invoice for single clients.

The Cloud App – Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud service where you can store your files online and access them from everywhere. It comes with an initial free storage of 2 GB, however that can easily be increased without paying a penny (for example by connecting with Dropbox on Social Media).

Any file uploaded or folder created on Dropbox can easily be shared with other people via links. Syncing, I believe, doesn’t need to be mentioned here since that is, after all, the reason to use a cloud storage in the first place: you can access your files from your phone, computer, tablet or any other person’s computer as well.

The Ambient Noise App – Ambient Mixer

Music and ambient noise is something that actually helps to focus. Thus, it was only natural to include the Ambient Mixer in this list as well! While this service is most commonly known for its website,the app certainly deserves a mention. So, what does the Ambient Mixer do?

On the website, you can listen to different ambient atmospheres that create background noise for you to work, read, write, study or even play in. There are many different environments that can help you concentrate way better. And if you can’t find the perfect one for yourself, you can create your own without any costs.

The mobile apps do exactly the same – they allow you to listen to relaxing music, the sounds of nature or the background noise of a coffee shop. You can temporarily make changes to the atmospheres in the app, like muting channels with sounds that annoy you. In a paid version, you can even save these changes. What’s available in both versions is a timer that will stop the mix you are listening to after a set time.

The All-Rounder App – Google

There are actually quite a lot Google productivity apps we have to, of course, mention here as well!

The palette of google apps is a big one and many of them are just perfect for boosting productivity. There are mobile and web apps that are a great alternative to the common office programs. With Google Sheets, Docs and Slides you can carry your work everywhere, while Google Hangouts is a great chat tool to connect with your friends and colleagues with. Google Drive is a very versatile cloud storage that will also house your Google documents created using the apps mentioned above so you have them all in one place.

One Google app that deserves a special mention is Google Keep. It is a sticky note app that does not only contains notes with texts, images and other attachments, but also with the option to create checkable to-do lists.

Of course, all these apps also support the sharing of documents, notes, and so on. Editing them parallel is no problem either since all changes will be logged and are viewable in a document history. Google regularly syncs its apps with web browser versions and the best of all? You only need one account to use them all!